It sounded thin, a last desperate chance. It was.

'The safe -- house could also become hot,' Ferris said. He wasn't impressed with what I'd said about using Rusakov.

'Yes,'

The militia patrol car was heading in this direction, going slowly. But then all the traffic was going slowly because of the snow and the ice.

'I'll find you a new safe -- house,' Ferris said. 'You'll need somewhere to stay while I make plans to fly you out under a new cover.' He was speaking in a monotone. Tanya Rusakova had been the key to the mission, and he didn't expect me to rope in her brother as an ally without her introduction. His hands were still red and he'd startle easily.

There was a man walking alone past the dock -- workers' meeting rooms, head down and hurrying, and when the car was alongside it dipped on its springs and slid to a stop and a militiaman got out.

'I'm not ready,' I told Ferris, 'to fly out yet.'

'It'll take time,' he said. 'Your new papers will have to come in through the consulate. We haven't anyone here who can do that kind of thing for us.'

The militiaman was asking the civilian to show his identity. Novosibirsk was a big city but the militia had thrown a net right across it in the past twelve hours because Zymyanin had been shot dead on the train and then the train had been blown up and the man who'd been charged with Zymyanin's death had escaped custody and General Velichko had been gunned down, and a red alert had gone out to all forces: militia, police, investigative and the army. It was understandable.

'They're stopping everyone,' I told Ferris, 'on the-' and broke off because of the click on the line.

'Don't worry,' Ferris said. 'I've got sniffers out.' Line detector, bug detector.

'They're stopping everyone on the street,' I said. 'Checking identities.'

'I know. Where are you?'

'In a phone booth.'

In a moment Ferris said, 'I've already ordered your new papers. I told Control it was fully urgent.'

The civilian was walking on again, tucking his wallet away, and the patrol car had started off, was rolling nearer the phone booth.

The glass hadn't misted since I'd come in here, because of the freezing draught. I had my back turned to the street, all I could do.

'Tell London,' I said,' that I'm working on Rusakov.'

In a moment Ferris said, 'If you had the freedom of the streets I'd let you keep things running. But you haven't. You'd have to trap that man before he'd even listen to you.'

I could hear the tyres of the patrol car, the ice crackling as it broke the frozen ruts; the smell of the exhaust came into the booth through the gap in the door. The nape of my neck was flushed; I stood as if expecting a bullet there. But of course there was no danger of that. They'd simply heave the door open and ask for my papers and all I'd have time to do would be to whisper Mayday into the phone and hang up. Ferris would know what had happened: I'd just told him they were stopping everyone on the street.

Ice crackling outside.

'If I can manage to contact Rusakov,' I said into the phone, 'I'll tell him his sister's been arrested, and that I'm going to get her out. If he's got any feelings for her, that should make him listen to me.'

Ice crackling and the tyres slipping on the walls of the ruts. A shadow was moving across the scarred aluminium panel behind the telephone, not actually a shadow, the soft reflection of the patrol car as it came past the booth. I stood breathing in the exhaust gas.

'Give that to me again,' I heard Ferris on the line.

'What?'

'You said something about getting Rusakov's sister out.'

'Yes.' .

The shadow moved across the aluminium panel. The reflection.

'They'll have taken her,' Ferris said, 'to Militia Headquarters.'

'Yes.'

Exhaust gas, stronger now, and sickening. 'You're going to get her out of Militia Headquarters?'

'Yes.'

Then the shadow moved on and the panel was clear again, and the crackling of the ice grew faint.

The line was quiet. He would tell me, Ferris, that he was pulling me out of the mission. He would instruct me to signal him again at thirty -- minute intervals until he'd got anew safe -- house forme, then he'd tell me to go there and stay there until he had my new papers and a plane lined up. He would make quite sure that I didn't go through with what he would call the death -- or -- glory thing and finish up chained to the wall in Militia Headquarters, a blown executive of the Bureau in London today, a prisoner facing trial in the months ahead and after five years, ten years, fifteen, a remnant of humanity breaking stones and hauling timber in the far reaches of Siberia, a creature of the permafrost living out its token life until that too was gone.

'We have to meet,' Ferris said.

'There isn't time.'

The patrol car was fifty yards away now and still rolling, and I pushed the door of the booth open a bit to let the sickening smell of the exhaust gas out.

And then with a soft shock of surprise I heard Ferris saying, 'All right, you'll have my full support."

The taxi slid to a stop with a front wheel buried in a drift.

'How far are you going?' the driver asked me through the open window.

'The nearest red -- light district.'

He hawked and spat. 'You want class?'

'No. Just a country girl.'

'Get in.'

He had pointed ears like a gnome's, and shiny patches of ointment on his face, red raw fingers poking from mittens with the black wool unravelling. A watery blue eye watched me in the driving mirror. They could all be shut, for all I knew, the brothels; in the early afternoon of a day like this the libidos would be frozen right across the town.

'There's a girl I know,' the driver said. 'Peasant girl. She's half -- you know --' circling a finger against his temple -- 'but with a body like --' he tried a whistle but couldn't make it, his lips were too dry.

'I'm looking for variety,' I said. 'What's your name?'

'Mikhail. You could get her for-'

'Mikhail,' I said, and passed him fifty. 'I want you to stay with me, all right?'

'Keep the meter going?'